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Starbucks Clashes With WiFi Hobbyists Over Airwaves
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Aug 20, 2002 02:29 AM
from the dr-evil-at-play dept.
from the dr-evil-at-play dept.
fobbman writes: "Portland Oregon's Pioneer Square (the heart of downtown) has had free WiFi access provided since February by Personal Telco, which is a local group of computer hobbyists. Now Starbuck's is planning on offering the same service on the same band in the same area for $29.95 a month, according to this story in the local fishwrap. Without regulation or licensing, and with WiFi growing, this could become a common problem."
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Starbucks T-Shirt (Score:3, Informative)
How to change a Starbucks T-Shirt into something filthy [everything2.com]
Can't do that? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure that I've seen that somewhere...
Re:Can't do that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course not. Those public free users are obviously Evil Terrorist Commie Content Pirates(tm), and should be kicked off in favor of the Good American Patriotic Capitalist(tm) company!
Parent
Re:Can't do that? (Score:4, Informative)
And currently most chipsets support frequency hopping to aviod cluttering.
The problems are coming in becuase Telco's are trying to make it east for themseleves by sticking to one channel. This saves on equipment costs and stuff.
In the long run this causes problems.. but remember thats how most people operate.... Find a solution only when problem comes... if preplanning was the norm the level of chaos would be much less.
The 802.11b standard is beautifuly designed but most people do not implement all the features to cut costs
Parent
Who was there first? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who was there first? (Score:5, Interesting)
Free vs. commercial shouldn't even enter into it. The real issue here is that companies are flooding a portion of the radio spectrum that has been set aside for general use and then clamouring for regulation after the fact in order to prop up their business model and turn "users" into "customers".
Parent
Re:Who was there first? (Score:3, Informative)
Nobody, especially personal telco, wants regulation, and nobody's saying that they chose channel 1 maliciously. But, there's a problem. Staying on channel 1 will hurt their quality of service just as much as ours, if not more, since people expect more when they're paying for it.
More links (Score:5, Informative)
Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:5, Informative)
The T-mobile installers talked to several PTP members in Starbucks as they were installing the hardware. They were made aware of the PTP node, and which channel it was on, as well as how long it had been installed (since February 2001).
T-mobile uses channel 1 on all their sites, so this is actually not an intentional act on their part, but either laziness or "corporate policy".
Channel 1 is used by these companies because software searches for an AP from channel 1 upwards. Obviously, they want to be found first.
A TV news spot (link can probably be found on the PTP site soon, I captured/encoded it and let others mirror on faster machines) was also shot today at the square, with a half-dozen PTP members sitting there trying to surf. The clip shows the tmobile and www.personaltelco.net AP's flashing in and out, as they stomped on each other. Performance of both network (we presume, no one has wasted $30/mo on a T-mobile account) sucked badly.
And for the curious, the Pioneer Courthouse Square Starbucks node is fed by a *satellite* connection, meaning horrendous latencies. The PersonalTelco node at the same location is fed by dual T1's. Do the math on bandwidth and latency, and tell me if you want to spend $30/mo for T-mobile....
Parent
Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Legitimate concern or disguised marketing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Typical Starbucks (Score:3, Interesting)
Generally they buy out old coffee houses, or promise the landlord of these existing cafes higher rent. Get an entire area filled with starbucks, then once the area is associated with coffee, they start closing up their shops, until they only need one in the area.
So it's only logical that they would take the same approach with WiFi.
Pioneer Square? (Score:2)
Now, what we really need is free WiFi on the Max and the Portland Streetcar.
Re:Pioneer Square? (Score:2)
Obligatory Onion Article (Score:4, Funny)
Breaker 192.168.0.19, breaker - breaker (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder how long it will be before someone starts selling 100W 802.11 amplifiers
Problems with Unregulated (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that Big Brother is our enemy in Slashdot, but it's hard to do anything constructive in unregulated space. Imagine the chaos if FM wasn't regulated.
Re:Problems with Unregulated (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Well, it depends on how the regulations are writte (Score:3, Interesting)
No regulation means no monopolies, but so does 'good' regulation. The problem is all this 'deregulation' stuff isn't actually deregulation, but rather changing the regulations in order to let greedy people game the system for $$, usually at the expense of other people.
Starbucks has little to do with their WiFi (Score:2, Insightful)
The short of it is, Starbucks has practically nothing to do with TMobile [tmobile.com]'s WiFi access. The managers and employees know next to nothing about the Internet access except for the fact that it exists, and that if customers want to use the access they should call up Tmobile. That's it, so don't jump down Starbucks throat over this.
Why Tmobile can't simply change their channel is beyond me; I imagine that nobody at Tmobile with any technical knowledge has been alerted to this yet.
Common Problem (Score:2, Troll)
If they can't resolve the frequency coordination, and it devolves into a shouting match, Starbuck's is gonna win. They will have access points located within their premeses (sp?) and will no doubt have the maxium legal power and antenna structures allowed by the FCC. If the private guys can punch thru that signal, they're doing it using illegal power levels or antennas.
Also, a corporate sponsored setup would have the potential to have a higher speed backbone in and out of the shop, and ultimately be able to provide better service than the free guys.
Re:Common Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, a corporate sponsored setup would have the potential to have a higher speed backbone in and out of the shop, and ultimately be able to provide better service than the free guys.
Not really. T-mobile has hooked up this node (and quite a few others from what I've heard, for cost reasons) to the 'Net with a satellite connection. That means ~400Kbps downstream and horrible latency.
The PTP node on the other hand is directly connected to two almost entirely idle load-balanced T1's.
Frequency coordination (Score:4, Interesting)
Second, he with the better license wins. Since 802.11b is FCC part 15 in a band that Hams occupy, get a licensed amateur to set up a station in that band, running max legal, and simply STOMP Starbucks out. Since a ham operates under FCC part 97, which trumps part 15, when Starbucks complains the ham can say "Sorry, but you have to ACCEPT all interference from my system - you are part 15, look at your license. Also, you are CAUSING interference in my system - stop immediately, as you are in violation of part 15."
While this sort of thing is frowned upon by the Amateur Radio Relay League, this may be what is needed to drive the message home to the companies that CASH does not make RIGHT.
Parent
Re:Frequency coordination (Score:4, Informative)
Further any Ham operator causing willful interference can be ticketed by the FCC. Even if they are interfering with secondary services, if it can be proved they are doing it just to cause harmful interference, they can be fined heavily for this.
And finally if you can find a Ham low enough to try this, you've found the exception, not the rule. Most hams would be outraged (as I am) at the mere suggestion we use MIGHT to make RIGHT.
If you modd'ers want to find a good Troll, check the parent of this message. Bah.
Parent
Re:They're ALREADY stomping each other out (Score:3, Interesting)
You jam them off the air, accepting that you won't be able to use the frequency either. You then demonstrate to them that this is the classical Prisoner's Dilemma - if we both are nice, we both win. If we both are nasty, we both lose. If one is nasty and one is nice, nasty wins.
The long-term winning strategy is "Nice first, the whatever the other guy does." PT started out nice, Starbucks started out nasty. So PT goes REALLY nasty. If Starbucks goes nice (by moving to a different channel), then PT goes nice.
Of course, since PT is providing a better service than Starbucks, Starbuck's cannot win playing nice UNLESS they shift their paradigm - perhaps co-operating wit PT in this one area to provide better coverage (e.g. Starbucks pays PT for a share of their T1 bandwidth in exchange for allowing Starbucks users in. Sure, in that locatilty you can get in free, but in other areas you cannot - so if you are a traveler you are better off subscribing.)
This just goes to show the flaw in all business thinking now-a-days - everybody treats the world as a zero-sum game ("For me to win, others must lose") rather than looking for non-zero-sum solutions ("Here's how we can ALL win"). Starbucks could have easily made this a win-win situation ("We'll kick in for bandwidth, you let our customers in, but also let anybody else in too.").
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you forgetting SSIDs? (Score:3, Interesting)
I set up something similar at work. We have 2 sets of wireless APs. One is for VMUs, (Vehicle Mounted Units) while the other is for laptops. Both are on channel 6 (had to be for other reasons) and both have different SSIDs. The laptops will not connect to the VMU APs, even if there is no signal from the Laptop APs. My Zaurus' Wireless card is set to "any" so it works on both of these networks, and will "hop" between them with no problems.
It's the commercial service that has to move along (Score:3, Interesting)
"These community-based wireless networks are wonderful, but these will never take the place of actual wireless systems deployed by carriers or companies such as T-Mobile," Ameri said.
They will exactly TAKE THE PLACE. What's left, is providing something special on that SHARED place. It will not take very long, when there's an international network of open gateways, and services that are provided commercially now (such as easiness to log-on anywhere you are). The share of the commercial companies will get smaller. IMHO, the commercial companies cannot provide much extra - they can do it first, but if it's useful these free services will adopt it.
Once they can license or otherwise guarantee the bandwidth, the situation changes. Like, if they can provide GPRS or some other means when the quality of the WiFi goes below certain limit (although I don't see any reasons why this could not be done by anyone else than the GPRS provider too) :)
(*note* this might be partly a troll, but I would still like to have comments on these :)
Stick to the standards (Score:2, Insightful)
802.11b supports overlapping networks (Score:5, Informative)
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed essid starbucks
udhcpc --interface wlan0
or
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed essid free
udhcpc --interface wlan0
For more efficient transmission, you can even program your access points to use different frequencies. There are twelve overlapping frequency bands used 802.11b, which provide for three or four completely independent networks.
Attempting to associate with a network named "Any" or "" will usually result in associating the network with the strongest signal, depending on your driver and card. This is also true in other operating systems.
Perhaps it's more of a plug than a disclaimer, but I should mention I'm involved in LANRoamer [lanroamer.net], an open source system that you can use to sell passers-by access to your wireless network and other participating networks.
Re:802.11b supports overlapping networks (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but the point of the story is that Starbucks (deliberately ?) chose to use the same frequency as the free guys.
And yes, the networks do manage to coexist, but with significant performance drops due to them sharing the same frequency.
Parent
Re:802.11b supports overlapping networks (Score:5, Insightful)
If it isn't their fault, then whose fault is it?
Parent
To those who've never been there.. (Score:5, Informative)
"Representatives of Starbucks and T-Mobile owner VoiceStream said they were unaware of any other wireless Internet presence in the square and had no comment on Personal Telco's objection."
Let me tell you something about Pioneer Square: Nobody's walking around with wireless devices screwing around on the web. To tell you the truth, the only way you could have found out this service was even availble was a quick blurb on the news. It doesn't surprise me at all that Starbuck's didn't even know it was there. Heck, it was sheer chance that I even found out about it. I go by Pioneer Square nearly ever day, I can honestly say I have never ever seen anybody doing wireless stuff there. (Not saying they don't do it, just saying that it's not visible.) I don't think more than a handful of people are aware of the 802.11 cloud present there.
Now, Starbuck's is right there on the square. They could set up a nice little antenna (heck, they could probably just use a $150 gateway, serious.) and it'd work just fine. This has nothing to do with trying to wipe out another service like it, it's just geography, it's just a coincidence.
Re:To those who've never been there.. (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't surprise me at all that Starbuck's didn't even know it was there.
Except for the part where several PTP members happened to be at Starbucks the day the T-mobile installers came. As I mention in my comment above, they talked for quite a while, with the T-mobile installers being made aware of a) the PTP node, b) how long it had been installed (some 6+ months by then, longer in testing), and c) what channel it was on.
As far as people not knowing about it, that is a problem we're trying to solve. If you saw the noon or 6:30 KGW news today you saw a piece about the node at the square and T-mobile's arrival. A week or two ago a half-dozen PTP members spent several hours handing out freshly-printed full-color trifolds explaining how to get online. Stickers are quite frequently placed at various locations, and promptly removed by Starbucks employees, but since it's not actually a public square, there's a limit to how much we can do legally.
Parent
Re:To those who've never been there.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I see no problem with Starbucks wanting to offer a service. This isn't ham radio they are using, so they can certainly charge money for it. The issue is whether they should use the same channel as a previously existing service. Before they were aware of it, they could have planned to use a particular channel. But, a prudent planner would have checked to see what was active in the area by simply checking out the RF in the area using WiFi equipment.
But Starbucks/T-mobile knows about it now. So they have to decide whether they want to continue to share the channel and have degraded service and impose degraded service on others, or whether they move to another channel and have good service without bothering others (until there are more services than channels available to accomodate). Even if they decide to stay, I won't call Starbucks as evil, because channel sharing is inevitable. However, if they demand that others move off the channel, then they are evil. We'll see.
Parent
SBUCKS is temporarily blocking the inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, Starbucks has gotten used to making a very, ahem - overly generous share of the profits for a beverage - what is it, something like 1200% gross margins? - so, now, they're just doing what comes natural, taking another market segment over in which they can jack us all up for the convenience of using our own property, our computers, while inside their location.
It will probably become the case that they will use some sort of technology to over-ride the ability of Personal Telco to provide free access anywhere near a Starbucks location. Then, those who want to even go near the place will be forced to pay Starbucks a damn subscription fee just to try and use what they once where able to use for free. Starbucks will, essentially, highjack the air in and near their retail locations.
So, seems to me that if everyone who was smart about this and committed to maintaining free access, they would cluster as many free access points around every Starbucks as they can.
Does it matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
The company [comwavz.com] providing this service had constructed a rather large (several hundred feet large, dwarfing an AT&T microwave relay station a few hundred yards down the road from it) tower near my house.
I guess I should mention that the landscape around here is flat. Like a ruler. And completely devoid of obstructions.
I had no trouble at all getting 500 kBps downloads using the Aironet 350 AP and Pringles can-looking antenna they provided and installed from this massive tower 2.1 miles away.
The point of this text? They cover, probably with some degree of success, a very significant portion of Northwest Ohio with just ten of these towers.
Cell phones don't get that kind of range.
And even -handheld- cell phones are good for up to for 600mW of output (in the US, per FCC rules). The Aironet is about half of that.
Old-school bag phones had output of up to 3W. Which -might- have been as good as Comwavz -appears- to be doing with plain old 802.11b.
I never got rain fade, or snow fade, or any fade at all while I used it, even when conditions rendered visibility to zero. My microwave didn't phase it, and waving my 2.4GHz spread spectrum Uniden cordless phone directly in front of the antenna didn't make any measurable dent in latency. An arc welder used directly below the antenna didn't make a difference, either.
Things worked almost as well after an hour or two of sustained 50-70MPH winds kicked the loosely-mounted antenna so that it was at 90 degrees to the aforementioned towering wonder of bandwidth - the least efficient way I can imagine for that type of antenna to work.
I was able to also communicate -directly- with a few other of their customers. Those which I was able to identify were often several miles away, none with antennas pointed at mine (nor mine at theirs). Speeds were slow in this ad-hoc arrangement, sometimes in the range of 30kBps, but often were on par with my (current) 2Mbit cable modem.
I am led to wonder, thus, precisely what the problem is. It seems to be a remarkably durable way to communicate, and I have difficulty believing that Starbucks, of all places, can put a dent in anything controlled by people with motivation to make it continue working.
(I did have some downtime, once or twice, but each time that happened I was able to use binoculars to spot a guy wearing a toolbelt, jacking his way up that towering steel phalus. I attributed the temporary loss of bandwidth to safety of his (obviously brass) balls, not to any enviromental or interferance issues.)
Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
you get an insane loss of reliability and signal.
personaltelco would be fine with moving our AP to another channel, but we're loathe to establish a precendent.
Parent
How does the community group pay for itself? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How does the community group pay for itself? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's donated by local ISPs. This is how all of the PersonalTelco sites in Portland are set up. The only exceptions are folks who set up a wireless node to share the bandwidth they pay for. And according to Adam Shand, one of the founders of PersonalTelco, the extra traffic acquired by doing this is negligible to the sharer.
However, PersonalTelco has taken the position that if your provider forbids sharing your connection, you shouldn't either. In other words, if you get your internet conenction from someone like AT&T Cable, you shouldn't set up a wireless node.
Everything PersonalTelco has been doing so far is on the up-&-up.
Geoff
Parent
This is stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Moving again and again? (Score:3, Informative)
Will Personal Telco have to move again after the next commercial service comes along? How many times do they have to move until there are no more channels to move to?
Channels are finite and this is an unlicensed spectrum anyone can use. Both parties have to live with that. Starbucks/T-Mobile was just stupid by not planning better. It isn't hard for a planning engineer to whip out the WiFi and just check to see what's there on what channel.
It would be smart for Starbucks to move over to another channel. Surely there will be fewer users of their service than of the free one, so they can certainly offer a service based on better bandwidth availability.
But this won't last long. The spectrum is limited, and there is no licensing or frequency coordinators to manage it. Part 15 rules [gpo.gov] include the fact that users are subject to interference from other legal users, including microwave ovens. Basing a paid service on such rules is foolhardy. But one direction is that it's success could be used to get the FCC to open more spectrum, and a licensing structure, for just such kinds of services. It will probably have to be on all new spectrum, perhaps up at 10 or 24 GHz.
It's a matter of life or death . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
For the users of Personal Telco, anyway.
If it's true that Starbucks wants to capitalize on the presence of WiFi users in Pioneer Square and is doing so by jamming the incumbent channel (as well as degrading the access of their own users), Personal Telco's moving to a different channel may not help.
Starbucks could simply migrate their services or, more likely, establish presence on that channel as well. Starbucks, it would seem, is intent not on occupying Personal Telco's space as much as assimilating Personal Telco's users
No?
This is kind of funny. (Score:4, Informative)
Starbucks can't do anything about it -- the antenna is located in a privately owned building across the street, and it's been there for a while. It's just bad luck for Starbucks, in my opinion. If they can open a shop across the street from a local coffee house, why can't a few well intentioned geeks set up a public wireless node in a nearby building?
My only beef is that I didn't get comp'd to sit there and show off the goods. I still keep in touch two people who went out and bought Airport enabled iBooks after talking with me about how great it was to surf the 'net while sipping a latte on a rainy Portland day.
Sadly, there isn't the same sort of presence here in Christchurch, New Zealand. Or at least, one that I can find. There's some projects in Dunedin, Wellington, and Auckland, but nothing that I can find in my home town. If anyone's heard rumors, please let me know! Thanks.
I smell a lawsuit (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, they can inadvertently connect to the Starbucks paid service.
I predict that starbucks will go to the courts about how people are "stealing" their service... It's probably only a matter of time before the lawyers will be on this. If this does end up happening, imagine the precedent. That means no more free WiFi. Although, on the other hand, perhaps Personal Telco could start charging a donation of $5/year or something so they can claim the same from Starbucks customers.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its amazing how many people (in the UK at least) treat the local Starbucks as their company's extra meeting room.
Re:Starbucks finally read the holy doctorine of... (Score:4, Informative)
Story:
source [thestandard.com]
Parent
Re:It's Part 15 unlicensed.... (Score:3, Informative)
Read even more details about Part 15 rules here [gpo.gov].
Re:WiFi and Mr. Buck's (Score:3, Informative)
They are doing it on PURPOSE.
THe hardware address of all network cars are unique when they leave the factory. If there is a conflict it is likely someone changed theirs intentionally.
As for the 'batch of NICs', I know it happens, but it does NOT happen often any more. It is likely they are snooping yours. Do yourself a favour and enable encryption.